urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entries-3404f8c4-d29c-4d8e-a7dd-f93b13530a6bMiddleware Conversations - Tags - amywohl The official blog of the IBM Middleware team, sharing expert opinions on the important role that middleware plays in your digital transformation.162015-07-31T16:53:27-04:00IBM Connections - Blogsurn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entry-3ab229c8-7354-406f-8c65-cd5bea3f693bA Ride on the Hybrid BusTravis Walkertamwalker@gmail.com27000093NFactiveComment Entriesapplication/atom+xml;type=entryLikes2011-12-27T15:46:29-05:002011-12-27T15:51:41-05:00<div>
<div> </div><p style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6030/5934290677_bca451dd50_m.jpg" align="left" border="0" height="120" hspace="35" vspace="45" width="98"></p>
<i>This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the information
technology community for more than 35 years. She is an industry
analyst and her current foci are cloud computing and the effects of
technology on society. She also has expertise in helping to create
new markets for new technologies. Read more blogs by Amy on </i><font color="#0000ff"><span lang="zxx"><u><a class="western" href="http://amys.typepad.com/amy_wohls_opinions/"><i>Amy Wohl's Opinions</i></a></u></span></font><i> and follow her on twitter </i><a href="http://twitter.com/amywohl">@AmyWohl</a>.
</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div> </div><div> </div>
<div> </div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br><br>For quite some time, SOA development was done using the ESB (Enterprise Service Bus).&nbsp; Usually, the ESB was not implemented with the first SOA deployment, but somewhat later, as the development and deployment of multiple services made it clear that the ESB provided a better way of tracking and managing the services environment.</span></div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Today, IT departments are facing more complex environments including private and public clouds.&nbsp; A more robust infrastructure may be needed.&nbsp; IBM proposes the IBM Hybrid Bus, to fuse the first generation ESB technologies with a new breed of special-purpose appliances.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><span style="font-weight: bold;">What is an ESB Hybrid Bus?</span><br><div>The IBM Hybrid Bus fuses together traditional WebSphere software ESB solutions with WebSphere connectivity and integration appliances, creating with these two components a single ESB solution that demands significantly less effort and resources to develop and maintain over time than software-only solutions.&nbsp; </div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>The combination of firmware and hardware in an appliance has been under development for about ten years (before SOA took off); IBM’s acquisition of DataPower allowed it to extend development of the technology, with DataPower providing the basis for the acceleration.&nbsp;&nbsp; No one else is doing this kind of appliance for SOA at this time – the WebSphere acquisition of DataPower changed the game, with customers getting more consumability and increased speed to market.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Think of the ESB Hybrid Bus as akin to a hybrid car; its hybrid engines economize with electric batteries, drawing less-expensive power from the grid when possible, while at the same time extending the vehicle’s range with tried-and-true internal combustion capabilities.&nbsp; The software component of the ESB Hybrid Bus provides extensibility and advanced functionality, extending the “range” of the ESB and allowing it to adapt into more applications; create richer services out of services already deployed to the ESB; and provide sophisticated qualities of service for those transactions most important to an enterprise.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Many IBM medium-sized and large customers are well on their way to broaden implementation.&nbsp; The Hybrid ESB Bus lets them simplify and economize with the implementation they already have plus appliances they will permit development and deployment to take less effort and offer more sophisticated results.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>A basic Hybrid ESB Bus optimizes ESB functions by off-loading transformation, and security enforcement.&nbsp; Other appliances will permit customers to extend to the cloud, exposing their services to the cloud and consuming services from the cloud.&nbsp;&nbsp; This strategy also works with Business Processes in real time services exchanges that have become quite popular.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Hybrid ESB Bus users can come from any customer categories, but early users include government agencies, defense organizations, and healthcare providers and payers.</div><div>&nbsp;</div>For more information on SOA Federation, download this <a href="http://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?subtype=WH&amp;infotype=SA&amp;appname=SWGE_WS_WS_USEN&amp;htmlfid=WSW14154USEN&amp;attachment=WSW14154USEN.PDF">white paper</a>.&nbsp; This white paper also includes links at the end to a number of related sources.<font face="Arial, serif"><font size="2"><font color="#0000ff"><span lang="zxx"></span></font>
</font>
</font>This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the information
technology community for more than 35 years. She is an industry
analyst and her current foci are cloud computing and the effects...004797urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entries-3404f8c4-d29c-4d8e-a7dd-f93b13530a6bMiddleware Conversations2015-07-31T16:53:27-04:00urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entry-5ff5d2b9-a719-47f7-9a50-981c5b7ce78dMaster Data Management, Business Process Management and Service Oriented ArchitectureRyan Boylesraboyles@us.ibm.com100000UX41activeComment Entriesapplication/atom+xml;type=entryLikes2011-12-12T14:13:17-05:002011-12-13T16:54:08-05:00<div>
<p style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6030/5934290677_bca451dd50_m.jpg" align="left" border="0" height="120" hspace="35" vspace="45" width="98"></p><div> </div><i>This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the information
technology community for more than 35 years. She is an industry
analyst and her current foci are cloud computing and the effects of
technology on society. She also has expertise in helping to create
new markets for new technologies. Read more blogs by Amy on </i><font color="#0000ff"><span lang="zxx"><u><a class="western" href="http://amys.typepad.com/amy_wohls_opinions/"><i>Amy Wohl's Opinions</i></a></u></span></font><i> and follow her on twitter </i><a href="http://twitter.com/amywohl">@AmyWohl</a>.
</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div>
<div> </div>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">A service oriented architecture (SOA)
helps drive business agility by allowing developers to infuse
business process management (BPM) with timely, trusted data from
master data management (MDM), leading to more intelligent business
processes. (This is, of course, only one of the many uses of SOA to
increase business agility.) The idea is to take trusted data and
allow it to lead to intelligent decision making, by the use of
integration patterns (we’ll get to that part, using Cardinal Health
as an example).</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Timely use of information from MDM is
key. MDM data delivery needs to be integrated with the business
process. The data needs to be governed and managed by providing
validation, avoiding duplicates, and so forth. These steps for data
stewardship need to be repeatable forming a business process.
Therefore, not only does MDM deliver trusted data in a SOA and BPM
based solution, but also SOA and BPM together is a key enabler for
managing MDM.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Some of these activities should be
embedded, but others should be separated, (such as data stewardship),
which must be kept agile and integrated as part of the Line of
Business (LOB) process. Updates must occur through a process under
the control of the data stewards (people, policies, rules). MDM
comes with a process to manage data stewardship. Data stewardship
processes are modified only by the data stewards to address new
issues with data quality – for example, needing to check valid
values for a key data field, validating against an external trusted
source, etc.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">MDM, SOA and BPM can address challenges
in two areas. They can enable more accurate and timely decision
making to enhance business performance, by using BPM to optimize
process with human tasks, automated tasks, and improved visibility.
MDM can provide trusted and timely data to business processes.
Enterprise process agility with BPM and trusted timely data from MDM
may be combined. SOA-based solution development delivers reuse and
productivity gains leading to greater business agility.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Master Data can be a trusted asset to
the organization’s business processes. BPM helps implement and
enforce policies and coordinates multi-step/multi-role workflow for
data.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">SOA enables MDM because it provides a
number of SOA services to the MDM process.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">While every company needs to match MDM,
BPs and SOA to its own needs, a good example of how this works is
Cardinal Health.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Cardinal Health is a Fortune 19
healthcare services company that improves the cost-effectiveness of
healthcare by providing products and services to the healthcare
supply chain worldwide. They have more than 40,000 customers, 30,000
employees in 10 countries and more than $103 billion dollars in
estimated 2011 revenues. Cardinal distributes about 1/3 of all
prescriptions in the U.S., manages hospital pharmacies, and provides
products to surgeries and hospitals. It does this through supporting
the distribution of a broad portfolio of healthcare market leaders’
products and services to hospitals and other healthcare
organizations.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Cardinal turned to IBM and SOA for
reuse and agility, planning to get there through a series of
incremental steps. They created a roadmap that would allow them to
present services of higher value over a period of time, while they
increased efficiency, agility, visibility (of the services), and
business agility. Cardinal started its Innovation Engagement with
IBM by applying IBM’s MDM Master Data Management and BPM
technologies; Cardinal provided the MDM objectives and the
requirements for skills to implement them while IBM provided the
expertise to capture optimized process models and help to deploy them
on IBM’s BPM offering.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">They used a Proof of Concept approach
and then developed the architecture and deployed SOA-based solutions.
This has allowed them to accelerate business value with a faster
time to market, use business-focused MDM implementations, insure
process optimization, and build a set of integration patterns to
leverage their investments in SOA, BPM, and MDM.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font face="Arial, serif"><font size="2">For
more information about this customer case study, download this </font></font><a href="ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/websphere/iod/IOD_2011_IMD_4092A.pdf">presentation</a><font face="Arial, serif"><font size="2"> on Business Agility with SOA, BPM and MDM from the recent IBM IOD conference.</font></font><font color="#0000ff"><span lang="zxx"></span></font></p>
This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the information
technology community for more than 35 years. She is an industry
analyst and her current foci are cloud computing and the effects...0010580urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entries-3404f8c4-d29c-4d8e-a7dd-f93b13530a6bMiddleware Conversations2015-07-31T16:53:27-04:00urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entry-278756ac-7391-48d9-adf7-ea16b8fa7f8dSOA FederationRyan Boylesraboyles@us.ibm.com100000UX41activeComment Entriesapplication/atom+xml;type=entryLikes2011-11-28T13:27:59-05:002011-11-28T13:27:59-05:00<div>
<p style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6030/5934290677_bca451dd50_m.jpg" align="left" border="0" height="120" hspace="35" vspace="45" width="98"></p><div> </div><i>This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the information
technology community for more than 35 years. She is an industry
analyst and her current foci are cloud computing and the effects of
technology on society. She also has expertise in helping to create
new markets for new technologies. Read more blogs by Amy on </i><font color="#0000ff"><span lang="zxx"><u><a class="western" href="http://amys.typepad.com/amy_wohls_opinions/"><i>Amy Wohl's Opinions</i></a></u></span></font><i> and follow her on twitter </i><a href="http://twitter.com/amywohl">@AmyWohl</a>.
</div>
<div> </div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>As business life gets more complex, with a network of relationships with customers, partners, and suppliers and the pace increases with more and more acquisitions, mergers, and consolidations, we need a way to manage the complexity of achieving service reuse and business agility across departments and channels.&nbsp; Federation is a key to managing this complexity. SOA is the foundation for an environment where agility and reuse are central.&nbsp; It supports:</div><div><ul><li>A service – a repeatable business task such as “check customer credit.”</li><li>Service Orientation – A way of integrating your business as a set of linked services and the outcomes they provide.</li><li>Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) – An IT architectural style that supports service orientation.<br></li></ul></div><div>The key is to manage the sharing of the right set of services between service domains—rather than everything being shared by default or nothing being shared at all. Service Federation offers a middle ground that enables true scaling of SOA by allowing service domains to evolve at their own pace and avoiding “sharing overload” to potential consumers, while managing the sharing of selected services according to service consumer needs and overall enterprise policies.</div><div>&nbsp;</div>Sharing services requires a method for making the right services visible, providing service security, and offering service monitoring and governance.&nbsp; This may be done in both hierarchical (parent/child) and Peer-to-peer service relationships.<br><div><ul><li>In a hierarchical architecture, one service domain takes on a dual role as (a) a service domain for the specific community it represents and (b) a coordinator or broker or interactions between other service domains—it becomes the Parent for those Child service domains. This pattern is used if there is an enterprise entity that can play such a dominant role via governance authority, financial means etc.&nbsp; It makes it easy to establish federation-wide governance and monitoring of service sharing.&nbsp; In a centralized environment, this can be done at an early stage by having a parent service domain that only provides brokerage between child domains but does not yet have a service domain of its own.</li><li>Peer-to-peer architectures are common in ad hoc federations (used early in the process where there are only a few service domains and none so large or so strong as to be the parent domain).<br></li></ul></div>Governing a federation is similar to governing services in a single service domain.&nbsp; Someone (typically the service owner) should be able to “approve” the use of a service by another service domain.<br><div>&nbsp;</div><div>In the Cloud, service federation may also be employed, following the use of SOA and the implementation of SaaS solutions made up of SOA services.&nbsp; The federation in that case may deploy services across data centers, private, and public clouds.</div><br>Read more by downloading this <a href="http://ibm.co/w58boY%20">free white-paper PDF on Service Federation Management</a>.<br>This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the information
technology community for more than 35 years. She is an industry
analyst and her current foci are cloud computing and the effects...003919urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entries-3404f8c4-d29c-4d8e-a7dd-f93b13530a6bMiddleware Conversations2015-07-31T16:53:27-04:00urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entry-5d6f31d9-8302-4c18-b751-8d73c013aab9Making WebSphere Message Broker Available to the Mid-MarketRyan Boylesraboyles@us.ibm.com100000UX41activeComment Entriesapplication/atom+xml;type=entryLikes2011-11-04T09:57:20-04:002011-11-04T10:06:45-04:00<div>
<p style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6030/5934290677_bca451dd50_m.jpg" align="left" border="0" height="120" hspace="35" vspace="45" width="98"></p><div> </div><i>This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the information
technology community for more than 35 years. She is an industry
analyst and her current foci are cloud computing and the effects of
technology on society. She also has expertise in helping to create
new markets for new technologies. Read more blogs by Amy on </i><font color="#0000ff"><span lang="zxx"><u><a class="western" href="http://amys.typepad.com/amy_wohls_opinions/"><i>Amy Wohl's Opinions</i></a></u></span></font><i> and follow her on twitter </i><a href="http://twitter.com/amywohl">@AmyWohl</a>.
</div>
<div>&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">With the introduction of WebSphere
Message Broker Express (WS MBX) to the IBM Message Broker portfolio,
it is now possible for SMB and Mid-Market organizations to get the
powerful integration capabilities larger enterprises have relied upon
for their corporate-wide implementations. It provides a robust ESB
for first time for smaller business users including open source, and
small .NET shops. MBX is intended to be used in a project-specific
manner and can support small departmental projects or pilots as well
as projects in smaller organizations.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">MBX makes it easier and quicker to
develop Message Broker (MB) solutions. Universal connectivity
includes supporting standards, de facto standards, as well as
industry and custom systems. Industry specific connectivity packs
solve domain specific problems and solution-oriented patterns are
also included. Programming is simplified with patterns (for common
use cases) and Graphical data flows.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> MB enables solutions that can easily
be changed, yet offer appropriate levels of management and control.
MBX is intended to work on the widest possible range of hardware,
software and virtualized environments; this includes support for a
full range of industry standard databases as well as providing
support for new databases such as MySQL; this means a broad range of
users and in-place hardware can be part of the MSX solution, if
required.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Recent additions to the broad
management capabilities of WMB include Record and Replay tooling,
providing administrators the ability to non intrusively monitor data
as it flows across corporate networks, while maintaining the ability
to edit and replay the data, or retain copies for audit. It’s also
possible to connect across Sterling Connect: Direct file and
messaging-based networks. This allows Sterling and Websphere MQ
messaging networks to interconnect, with new connections and new
development patterns for rapid development.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><a href="http://ibm.co/vHUukS%20">WebSphere MBX</a> provides extensive management
across a wide range of operating systems and hardware platforms,
including virtual and cloud options. It provides high performance
transactional processing with additional vertical and horizontal
scalability. Connectivity Packs are available for industry specific
content, starting with a Healthcare Pack which includes connectors,
patterns, and tooling. Other Industry Connectivity Packs are
planned.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">.NET developers can utilize tooling in
MS Visual Studio, to quickly connect to Microsoft applications in a
familiar environment making the migration easier and quicker.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">It’s easy to migrate among the
different versions of MB. As the project or the organization grows, <a href="http://ibm.co/vHUukS%20">WebSphere MBX</a> customers can easily move up to WebSphere Message Broker
Standard Edition (for greater capability) or WebSphere Message Broker
Advanced Edition (for greater scalability).</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br></p>
This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the information
technology community for more than 35 years. She is an industry
analyst and her current foci are cloud computing and the effects...005761urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entries-3404f8c4-d29c-4d8e-a7dd-f93b13530a6bMiddleware Conversations2015-07-31T16:53:27-04:00urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entry-b2a04410-2fcf-4929-9c62-2dc6fc5be489More Reliable and Secure Data Transfer with WebSphere MQ MessagingRyan Boylesraboyles@us.ibm.com100000UX41activeComment Entriesapplication/atom+xml;type=entryLikes2011-10-25T12:13:09-04:002011-10-25T12:13:09-04:00<div>
<p style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6030/5934290677_bca451dd50_m.jpg" align="left" border="0" height="120" hspace="35" vspace="45" width="98"></p><div> </div><i>This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the information
technology community for more than 35 years. She is an industry
analyst and her current foci are cloud computing and the effects of
technology on society. She also has expertise in helping to create
new markets for new technologies. Read more blogs by Amy on </i><font color="#0000ff"><span lang="zxx"><u><a class="western" href="http://amys.typepad.com/amy_wohls_opinions/"><i>Amy Wohl's Opinions</i></a></u></span></font><i> and follow her on twitter </i><a href="http://twitter.com/amywohl">@AmyWohl</a>.
</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;For almost 20 years, enterprise users have relied on IBM MQ (Message Queuing) to reliably and securely move information through their businesses.&nbsp; For them, the continued and expanded use of MQ is simply good business.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div> For potential new users of many sizes, WebSphere MQ is likely to be much better than what you’re using now and will complement what you have in place.&nbsp; WebSphere MQ also provides the basis for new levels of connectivity in a host of “modern” applications.&nbsp; For example:</div>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;•&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Access to your data in real time where you require assured delivery, connectivity anywhere, and end-to-end security.&nbsp; For example, traffic data from millions of in-road devices can be used to determine appropriate usage charges or direct changes in traffic flow.&nbsp; The <a href="http://ibm.co/uVA8Op">New Zealand DOT</a> uses WebSphere MQ to send messages to automated highway signs.<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;•&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;WebSphere MQ can support data collection from many type of remote devices, supporting the ability to predict, alert, measure, and track. &nbsp;<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;•&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Two levels of telemetry support for mobile and smart devices.&nbsp; A Standard Telemetry offering features a very lightweight client; an Advanced Telemetry with a larger footprint can fit on a mobile phone.<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;•&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Telemedicine, transporting patient data (from a pacemaker, for example) to a physician to determine changes and instructions.<br><div>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;•&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Energy Usage:&nbsp; moving data from Smart Meters. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div>WebSphere MQ isn’t glamorous, but it is essential, making sure a message is delivered once and once only –for the customer who needs that level of integrity.&nbsp; WebSphere MQ Messaging supports JMS, HTTP, REST, and Web 2.0. It supports managed file transfers, provides end-to-end security, connects remote devices and sensors, and supports ultra low latency messaging for highest message throughput and lowest message latency over any transport.<br><br>WebSphere MQ supports a broad range of applications and opportunities. Some new customers use it for managed file transfer.&nbsp; In Madrid, it’s used to coordinate emergency services.&nbsp; In Holland, Websphere MQ provides early detection as part of their flood protection systems. <br><br>Websphere MQ can also offer cost savings and a competitive edge – supporting data and transaction integrity and providing an opportunity to create new applications.<br><div>&nbsp;</div><div>In the cloud, WebSphere MQ helps keep track of data in an environment which is not always connected, so that after an outage of any duration, the data will keep flowing without data loss. Read on for <a href="http://www-01.ibm.com/software/integration/wmq/">more information on WebSphere MQ</a> and the role it can play in your organization and applications. <br></div>This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the information
technology community for more than 35 years. She is an industry
analyst and her current foci are cloud computing and the effects...004068urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entries-3404f8c4-d29c-4d8e-a7dd-f93b13530a6bMiddleware Conversations2015-07-31T16:53:27-04:00urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entry-57edaa8d-fb34-4509-9a78-a363c33fae65Providing Enhanced Connectivity in Heterogeneous IT EnvironmentsRyan Boylesraboyles@us.ibm.com100000UX41activeComment Entriesapplication/atom+xml;type=entryLikes2011-10-10T11:36:42-04:002011-10-11T09:46:31-04:00<div>
<p style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6030/5934290677_bca451dd50_m.jpg" align="left" border="0" height="120" hspace="35" vspace="45" width="98"></p><div> </div><i>This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the information
technology community for more than 35 years. She is an industry
analyst and her current foci are cloud computing and the effects of
technology on society. She also has expertise in helping to create
new markets for new technologies. Read more blogs by Amy on </i><font color="#0000ff"><span lang="zxx"><u><a class="western" href="http://amys.typepad.com/amy_wohls_opinions/"><i>Amy Wohl's Opinions</i></a></u></span></font><i> and follow her on twitter </i><a href="http://twitter.com/amywohl">@AmyWohl</a>.
</div>
<div>&nbsp;</div><div><i><b>Enterprise Connectivity</b><br><br></i></div><div>In both enterprise data centers and smaller computing environments, how you connect different types of IT environments together – and making these connections robust, secure, and reliable -- while at the same time making them easy to create and reasonably priced is a steep challenge.&nbsp; New versions of IBM’s Message Broker and MQ, as well as new tools specifically for the cloud, make this task faster and easier.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div><b><i>Connectivity with Message Broker</i></b></div><br><div><a href="http://ibm.co/oYbH87">IBM WebSphere Message Broker</a> (WMB), an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), provides universal connectivity and transformation in heterogeneous IT environments.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It includes .NET support and direct connectivity to IBM Sterling Direct:Connect.&nbsp;&nbsp; For example, a file-based data network based on Direct:Connect can be connected to a data-based network using Message Broker.&nbsp; The new version of WMB (V8) provides diagnostic tooling that allows data from all sources to be viewed, edited, recorded and replayed.&nbsp; </div><div>&nbsp;</div><br><div>WMB comes in three versions, an advanced option, the mid-tiered Standard option, and a new Express version, especially designed for the SMB market, with simplified operations and entry-point pricing.&nbsp; Pre-built connectivity patterns, for both applications and specific industries, make it easier and faster to create connections. </div><div>&nbsp;</div><br><div>All of this means more options for connecting existing and new applications and data, wherever they might be.&nbsp;&nbsp; More results for less work. &nbsp; </div><div>&nbsp;</div><br><b><i>Enhanced MQ</i></b><br><br><div><a href="http://ibm.co/ofOWZ4%20">IBM WebSphere MQ</a> (MQ) provides reliable, flexible, and secure messaging.&nbsp; MQ provides support for CICS, IMS, DB2, .NET and JEE.&nbsp; It supports flexible configurations and flexible integration and provides guaranteed delivery.&nbsp; This version of MQ makes it easier to enable security around messages without the need to write new code or create wrappers.&nbsp; MQ’s new security configuration wizard eliminates the need for homegrown security.&nbsp; Its extended reach allows for real time updates from business applications, sensors, and mobile devices.&nbsp; </div><div>&nbsp;</div><br><b><i>In the Cloud</i></b><br><br><div>A special version of MQ, <a href="http://ibm.co/oJhEj8">IBM WebSphere MQ Hypervisor Edition for AIX</a>, provides secure messaging for the Cloud, providing MQ messaging solutions for virtualized environments, enabling better utilization of hardware, reducing hardware and software operational and maintenance costs, and connecting multiple virtual machines within a private cloud.&nbsp; </div><div>&nbsp;</div><br><div><a href="http://ibm.co/nCe4f9">WebSphere Cast Iron Cloud</a> will provide rapid integrations which can reduce project costs by up to 80%, via native connectors and template integration.&nbsp; A wizard-based architecture puts the emphasis on configuration, not coding.&nbsp; Deployment can be based on a physical appliance, a virtual instance, or a cloud service.</div><div>&nbsp;</div> <br><div>Considered together, these announcements make creating reliable, secure, and interconnected environments easier for both large enterprises and smaller businesses, regardless of platform or need. </div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>For more information, explore <a href="http://www.ibm.com/business-agility%20">ibm.com/business-agility</a> and start a conversation with hashtag #bizagility.<br></div>
This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the information
technology community for more than 35 years. She is an industry
analyst and her current foci are cloud computing and the effects...105566urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entries-3404f8c4-d29c-4d8e-a7dd-f93b13530a6bMiddleware Conversations2015-07-31T16:53:27-04:00urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entry-d5f9dd0b-7d29-48a0-8599-dff902c25a0aWebSphere, Cast Iron and Sterling: Routes to IntegrationRyan Boylesraboyles@us.ibm.com100000UX41activeComment Entriesapplication/atom+xml;type=entryLikes2011-09-30T11:29:38-04:002011-10-11T09:53:04-04:00<div><p style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6030/5934290677_bca451dd50_m.jpg" align="left" border="0" height="120" hspace="35" vspace="45" width="98"></p><div> </div><i>This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the information
technology community for more than 35 years. She is an industry
analyst and her current foci are cloud computing and the effects of
technology on society. She also has expertise in helping to create
new markets for new technologies. Read more blogs by Amy on </i><font color="#0000ff"><span lang="zxx"><u><a class="western" href="http://amys.typepad.com/amy_wohls_opinions/"><i>Amy Wohl's Opinions</i></a></u></span></font><i> and follow her on twitter </i><a href="http://twitter.com/amywohl">@AmyWohl</a>.
</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>In the modern business world, business partners can no longer wait to exchange paper documents, much less re-enter their content into their IT systems.&nbsp; Rather, they need systems that allow them to move information seamlessly across the wire, exchanging information in real time.</div><div>In B2B situations, there is an increasing need to use integration to exchange trading documents, enabling business processes that move across company boundaries.&nbsp; Enterprises require this be done in a reliable and highly secure environment. This is happening regardless of whether clouds are involved, but clouds may make it happen more quickly. </div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>IBM acquisitions Sterling Commerce and Cast Iron can provide these integrations in any environment.&nbsp; Sterling has hundreds of thousands of global trading entities in the cloud and documents can be transformed into any required format.&nbsp; Cast Iron can offer integration implementations with an on premise appliance, a virtual instance, or cloud service and can allow data to be fully integrated with back-end systems.&nbsp; Recently, IBM announced support for Hybrid Cloud environments, based on Cast Iron, which allows hybrid cloud environments to be securely managed.</div><div>&nbsp;</div> <div>The challenge is to provide ease of integration across a B2B trading community located in the cloud.&nbsp; Sterling evolved from EDI – in the sense that the same customers that previously exchanged documents can now take an easier route and automate complete B2B processes, using superior integration in the cloud..&nbsp; Another challenge is that not only IT professionals consume these applications today; business users and customers may also play a role.&nbsp; Data integrity is all-important.&nbsp; The goal is to enter data once and avoid manual processes which are more error-prone and prevent getting to a real time system.&nbsp; <a href="http://www.sterlingcommerce.com/products/b2b-integration/">Sterling</a> offers visibility to the B2B supply chain; <a href="http://www.ibm.com/castiron">Cast Iron</a> offers visibility to the internal processes.</div><div>&nbsp;</div> <div>These are complex systems.&nbsp; The cloud doesn’t necessarily make things less complex but it may make it faster to integrate and deploy.&nbsp; The cloud offers you a better total ROI, faster deployment, and better management of data and processes.&nbsp; It isn’t necessarily less complex or cheaper.&nbsp; Since you’re trying to interconnect everything, including external resources, it may be more complex, even as it becomes more valuable. &nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>In this environment, security is based on making good choices of products and vendors.&nbsp; IBM has the best complete solution, especially if you’re going to connect external resources, using Cast Iron.&nbsp; The focus is on secure integration based on tried and true technologies from a company known for its successful emphasis on security.</div><div>&nbsp;</div> <div>There are other considerations such as using SOA to create the services which you will use to build solutions; governance will insure that all the pieces are in place and that they’re working.&nbsp; SOA is not the cloud nor does the cloud replace SOA.&nbsp; They work together to create a modern, service-based, highly flexible environment.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>What are your thoughts on integration?&nbsp; Where are your biggest challenges and where do you have opportunities for agile integration?<br></div><br>
This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the information
technology community for more than 35 years. She is an industry
analyst and her current foci are cloud computing and the effects...005560urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entries-3404f8c4-d29c-4d8e-a7dd-f93b13530a6bMiddleware Conversations2015-07-31T16:53:27-04:00urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entry-b1074b17-967c-4932-9697-17fa879f29dcAccelerating Application and Service DeliveryRyan Boylesraboyles@us.ibm.com100000UX41activeComment Entriesapplication/atom+xml;type=entryLikes2011-09-16T10:12:53-04:002011-10-11T09:51:53-04:00<div><p style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6030/5934290677_bca451dd50_m.jpg" align="left" border="0" height="120" hspace="35" vspace="45" width="98"></p><div> </div><i>This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the information
technology community for more than 35 years. She is an industry
analyst and her current foci are cloud computing and the effects of
technology on society. She also has expertise in helping to create
new markets for new technologies. Read more blogs by Amy on </i><font color="#0000ff"><span lang="zxx"><u><a class="western" href="http://amys.typepad.com/amy_wohls_opinions/"><i>Amy Wohl's Opinions</i></a></u></span></font><i> and follow her on twitter </i><a href="http://twitter.com/amywohl">@AmyWohl</a>.
</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>The delivery of IT services is changing.&nbsp; IT applications are no longer built individually, but rather made up of a set of composite services arranged and rearranged to provide specific solutions.&nbsp; This allows IT to react more quickly to changes in the business and create and deliver successful new solutions faster.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>But it makes for substantial changes:</div>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;•&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;New styles in application design and development, knitting together existing groups of pre-tested services plus perhaps some additional code, rather than writing from scratch<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;•&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Keeping track of services from many sources:<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;•&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;The organization’s own IP<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;•&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;IP purchased, perhaps with perpetual use licenses, from other sources<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;•&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;IP provided by partners<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;•&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;New styles of deployment:<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;•&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Eventually, a decision to deploy the templates for solutions and provide only the services not previously downloaded (still rare today)<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;•&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;The need to deploy to many participants on many platforms – especially laptops, smartphones, and tablets<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;•&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Migration to the cloud:<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;•&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;A new underlying hardware infrastructure, much more flexible, leads to the need for&nbsp; a different style of design<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;•&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Many styles of using all the resources:&nbsp; legacy applications, rewritten legacy applications, cloud applications, cloud services – and how they are combined&nbsp; (which will change as interoperability standards change)<br><div>&nbsp;</div><div>All of this means that IT may need different skill sets now and tomorrow than they have built up in the past.&nbsp; For example, IT will need much more SOA expertise to work with legacy applications in a cloud environment and build new services and applications.&nbsp; IT will also need much more expertise in working with the cloud, deploying clouds, deploying services and solutions on clouds, and managing all of this in an evolving cloud environment. </div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>It’s hard to see that you will need something different when you’re sitting in a current environment trying to make things work.&nbsp; Without some attention to the difference between cloud environments and current on-site environments, changes will occur in a less than optimal way.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Two things are happening that will help:</div><br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;•&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Standards organizations are working on making interoperability between clouds easier and more certain.&nbsp; We all need that.<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;•&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;IBM had recently announced a new <a href="/jct03001c/press/us/en/pressrelease/35291.wss">Hybrid Cloud computing solution</a> that permits private clouds to expand, when needed, into public clouds, taking advantage of their additional capacity and elasticity to keep performance levels up.&nbsp; This will make the job of working in multiple cloud environments more secure, more automated, and much easier.<br><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Customers are already creating advanced solutions to IT problems with cloud technology, so it’s very clear the cloud is already working.&nbsp; Watch <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/IBMCustomerReference#grid/user/C8CF7C802D285A39">YouTube videos about IBM customer experiences</a> and leave comments about the stories that resonate with you. <br></div>
This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the information
technology community for more than 35 years. She is an industry
analyst and her current foci are cloud computing and the effects...003823urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entries-3404f8c4-d29c-4d8e-a7dd-f93b13530a6bMiddleware Conversations2015-07-31T16:53:27-04:00urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entry-c13fec6f-f978-4251-9982-ecfc1b6320eaWhy Do You Need Governance in the Cloud? Project and Service GovernanceRyan Boylesraboyles@us.ibm.com100000UX41activeComment Entriesapplication/atom+xml;type=entryLikes2011-08-29T09:29:09-04:002011-10-11T09:52:36-04:00<div><p style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6030/5934290677_bca451dd50_m.jpg" align="left" border="0" height="120" hspace="35" vspace="45" width="98"></p><div> </div><i>This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the information
technology community for more than 35 years. She is an industry
analyst and her current foci are cloud computing and the effects of
technology on society. She also has expertise in helping to create
new markets for new technologies. Read more blogs by Amy on </i><font color="#0000ff"><span lang="zxx"><u><a class="western" href="http://amys.typepad.com/amy_wohls_opinions/"><i>Amy Wohl's Opinions</i></a></u></span></font><i> and follow her on twitter </i><a href="http://twitter.com/amywohl">@AmyWohl</a>.
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Companies (and individuals) often choose to mitigate risks by buying insurance.&nbsp; This doesn’t keep bad things from happening, but it reduces risk and helps you return to a steady state.&nbsp; In the cloud, governance is a kind of insurance; it provides a structure for managing multiple projects, avoiding redundant work, and allowing your organization to exploit investments in services by managing your service portfolio.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>But planning and implementing governance is often incremental.&nbsp; In fact, most cloud usage starts with no governance at all (except that SOA governance may already be in place).&nbsp; Early cloud usage is often associated with projects at the departmental level; it’s hard to justify or “sell” governance, which represents an additional expense, before the deployment of additional projects makes it clearer what benefits governance offers.&nbsp; (Of course, if you can convince cloud users to start with governance, or provide governance as an IT-funded service, so much the better.)</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Governance can help manage consumer/provider relationships.&nbsp; It can manage contracts for SLAs and charge-backs and manage the provisioning of services such as check approval and credit card processing.&nbsp; But to consume these fine-grained services, governance is required; otherwise, each time the service is used it will probably be written again.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>If SOA governance is already in place (and in many large enterprises it will be) governance for cloud services may be implemented on top of it; otherwise, you will want to implement&nbsp; SOA governance first.&nbsp; SOA governance defines essential governance and management processes for consumer/provider environments including portfolio management, project management, service management, and policy management.&nbsp; Cloud governance requires extensions of SOA service provisioning to support business models that are more contract-driven.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>As services (such as HIPPA compliance) begin to become available from industry services providers, governance will enable consuming and integrating these services.&nbsp;&nbsp; But buyers need to be aware of what they’re buying; standards are still in their infancy and providers may be using de facto standards rather than broader ones, opening buyers to the possibility of vendor lock-in.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>The cloud will drive a significant acceleration in change, making it more important than ever to be able to consume and re-consume services, rather than writing and rewriting custom code.&nbsp; Governance allows this to happen.&nbsp; Already it is apparent that well-governed organizations (on every level from IT governance to SOA governance to cloud governance) perform better because they are dynamically better at adapting to change.&nbsp; For more information about the relationship between SOA and Cloud Governance <a href="ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/websphere/impact/IMPACT2011_TSG-1833.pdf">download this PDF</a>. </div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>In the next blog post, we’ll talk about the role of accelerated workload integration and performance.</div>
This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the information
technology community for more than 35 years. She is an industry
analyst and her current foci are cloud computing and the effects...005362urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entries-3404f8c4-d29c-4d8e-a7dd-f93b13530a6bMiddleware Conversations2015-07-31T16:53:27-04:00urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entry-9ecaefae-dd33-4202-9f82-cb43dc07fb55SOA and Governance for Cloud ComputingRyan Boylesraboyles@us.ibm.com100000UX41activeComment Entriesapplication/atom+xml;type=entryLikes2011-08-19T16:22:01-04:002011-10-11T09:52:50-04:00<div><p style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6030/5934290677_bca451dd50_m.jpg" align="left" border="0" height="120" hspace="35" vspace="45" width="98"></p><div> </div><i>This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the information
technology community for more than 35 years. She is an industry
analyst and her current foci are cloud computing and the effects of
technology on society. She also has expertise in helping to create
new markets for new technologies. Read more blogs by Amy on </i><font color="#0000ff"><span lang="zxx"><u><a class="western" href="http://amys.typepad.com/amy_wohls_opinions/"><i>Amy Wohl's Opinions</i></a></u></span></font><i> and follow her on twitter </i><a href="http://twitter.com/amywohl">@AmyWohl</a>.
</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>While it is certainly true that SOA and Cloud computing are not the same thing (see my previous blog on <a href="http://www.ibm.com/connections/blogs/aim/entry/soa_governance_and_cloud_computing51">SOA Governance and Cloud Computing</a>), Cloud architecture draws heavily on SOA architecture and SOA governance can provide significant value to governing cloud environments.&nbsp; This means if you’re already using SOA governance, you’re one step further along in implementing cloud governance.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Various kinds of governance (such as Enterprise/Business Governance, BPM governance, and IT Governance can all intersect with SOA Governance and help inform your Cloud Computing Governance.&nbsp; IBM explains its Cloud Computing and SOA Reference Architectures in a set of charts. I can’t display the charts here, but I can give you a link to <a href="ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/websphere/impact/IMPACT2011_TSG-1833.pdf"> download a PDF and better understand the architecture.</a> &nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Basically the Cloud Computing Reference Architecture allows a cloud service creator, using appropriate tools, to take advantage of infrastructure offered by a cloud service provider and offer cloud services to the business consumer. Governance is part of the environment, but you have to choose to implement it.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Think of the relationship between SOA and Cloud Computing as a series of steps.&nbsp; If you add the Middleware View of the SOA Reference Architecture to the specifics of the cloud you should arrive at the Cloud Reference Architecture.&nbsp; And the architectural principles of SOA will help you implement cloud governance with some additional tools.&nbsp; &nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Customers often say they would like to rely on standards but the reality of cloud standards is that no one is offering a complete set today and many standards organizations are (not yet) in agreement with one another.&nbsp; Recently, IBM helped to form a <a href="http://www.cloudstandardscustomercouncil.org/about-us.htm">Customer Council</a>, under the auspices of the Open Management Group, not to build standards, but rather to create a set of guidelines and requirements that they will offer to standards groups, in the hopes that the standards that emerge will be better suited to customer needs and avoid some of the long period of negotiating and “tweaking” that usually occurs in early standards efforts.&nbsp; In any case, sticking with the SOA Reference Architecture and a Cloud Reference Architecture that is an extension of SOA will keep organizations on a path toward interoperability until the standards arrive. &nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>There are two kinds of Cloud Governance issues you will need to address.&nbsp; The first is how to get cloud projects in your organization to consider implementing governance early; that may require offers of funding or technical assistance to encourage individual projects to make the investment.</div><div>&nbsp;</div>The second is a set of governance issues you should consider, such as:<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;•&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Governance processes should make it easy to do things the right way and hard to do them the wrong way (a quote from Mark Ericson, CTO <a href="http://www.actional.com/mindreef/?refer=xmethods&amp;link=titleimage">Mindreef</a>, now Progress).<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;•&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Be aware of regulatory requirements (about privacy, data integrity, etc.)<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;•&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Automation is key to optimal service automation across all realms of the cloud.&nbsp; But if you want users to self-service, you need to make it easy.<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;•&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Business enablement requirements for your organization, including customer and industry requirements.<br><div>&nbsp;</div><div>You need to think about governance and the <a href="ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/websphere/impact/IMPACT2011_TSG-1833.pdf">SOA Governance model</a> (PDF) is the one you should be thinking about.&nbsp; We’re going to look at cloud computing governance in more granular ways, for specific tasks, in a future blog.</div>
This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the information
technology community for more than 35 years. She is an industry
analyst and her current foci are cloud computing and the effects...204428urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entries-3404f8c4-d29c-4d8e-a7dd-f93b13530a6bMiddleware Conversations2015-07-31T16:53:27-04:00urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entry-d46bf8c0-c4df-4e0d-ae35-b617f297a653Virtualization Is Also a Tool for MigrationRyan Boylesraboyles@us.ibm.com100000UX41activeComment Entriesapplication/atom+xml;type=entryLikes2011-08-12T14:01:14-04:002011-08-12T14:01:14-04:00<div><style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }a:link { color: rgb(0, 0, 255); }a.western:link { }a.cjk:link { }a.ctl:link { font-family:Times New Roman; }</style>
<p style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6030/5934290677_bca451dd50_m.jpg" align="left" border="0" height="120" hspace="35" vspace="45" width="98"></p><div> </div><i>This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the information
technology community for more than 35 years. She is an industry
analyst and her current foci are cloud computing and the effects of
technology on society. She also has expertise in helping to create
new markets for new technologies. Read more blogs by Amy on </i><font color="#0000ff"><span lang="zxx"><u><a class="western" href="http://amys.typepad.com/amy_wohls_opinions/"><i>Amy Wohl's Opinions</i></a></u></span></font><i> and follow her on twitter </i><a href="http://twitter.com/amywohl">@AmyWohl</a>.
</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Nearly everyone has signed up for virtualization as a cost saving measure – it simply makes sense to run virtual sessions on a smaller number of more powerful systems.&nbsp; But that’s not all virtualization can do for a data center.&nbsp; Virtualization can also be used to make migrations faster and smoother.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Customers and IBM Business Partners are now using <a href="http://ibm.co/r7L54q">IBM Workload Deployer</a> (formerly known as WebSphere CloudBurst Appliance) to take IBM middleware virtual images and deploy them to a private cloud to create environments for customer applications. This capability to move a virtual image (or a pattern) quickly can allow users to migrate applications to a WebSphere server in minutes rather than weeks.&nbsp; It also removes manual processes (which can be slow, costly, and error-prone), and ensures security.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Customers can use IBM Workload Deployer (IWD) to manage their development and deployment issues such as integration test and performance/stress/load before placing their applications into production.&nbsp; Once the environment has been defined and tested, it can be made available on a repeatable, self-service basis.&nbsp; All of this takes advantage of such goals as automation, standardization, and virtualization.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>The payback to the IT organization (and, indeed, to the business, as well) is that there is quicker Time to Value.&nbsp; This means the payback for using this process increases total revenue as well as making revenue streams available sooner.&nbsp; (If the Time to Value is “increased user satisfaction or decreased dissatisfaction”, or “more leads converted to sales”, calculations can, of course, be made on those terms.)</div>IBM Business Partners like Haddon Hill Group are finding IWD an ideal tool for smoothly and quickly managing customer migrations; it’s also a way to integrate software. Take a look at <a href="http://ibm.co/mS0UNy">a case study of Haddon Hill Group</a> and its financial services client’s migration.<br><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Generally, using IWD is an up-front decision, based on client needs for a planned migration.&nbsp; It might involve software upgrades or simply a need to move applications to the cloud.&nbsp; There are many IBM customers doing a migration or update who are candidates for an IWD deployment.&nbsp; Mainly they are enterprise customers who can see the logic of making an extra investment in the upgrade/migration process in return for speed and fewer road bumps.&nbsp; Customers who are considering migrations are usually coming to the end of the support cycle for a product or want to leverage new features/functions in the new version of a product (such as performance). </div><br>But sometimes it is a remediation effort where a migration effort gets bogged down and new resources need to be applied.&nbsp; This can come in the form of pre-integrated solutions – IWD, WebSphere Message Broker, Cloud entitlements and the Rational Automation Framework for WebSphere or the needed components can be purchased separately.<br><div>&nbsp;</div><div>In order to get the full benefits of virtualization and cloud computing, it’s important to design your processes so that as much automation, standardization, and virtualization as might be appropriate can be applied.&nbsp; Faster Time to Value has become the right measurement for many upgrades and migrations and these tools will help you get there.&nbsp; In my next blog, I’ll be discussing SOA and Governance, an important topic for developing a well managed cloud.</div>
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }a:link { color: rgb(0, 0, 255); }a.western:link { }a.cjk:link { }a.ctl:link { font-family:Times New Roman; }
This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the...002104urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entries-3404f8c4-d29c-4d8e-a7dd-f93b13530a6bMiddleware Conversations2015-07-31T16:53:27-04:00urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entry-a2c8a268-56c2-4e48-b30e-bb2213215057Managing and Monitoring the CloudRyan Boylesraboyles@us.ibm.com100000UX41activeComment Entriesapplication/atom+xml;type=entryLikes2011-08-08T10:08:35-04:002011-08-08T10:09:18-04:00<div><style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }a:link { color: rgb(0, 0, 255); }a.western:link { }a.cjk:link { }a.ctl:link { font-family:Times New Roman; }</style>
<p style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6030/5934290677_bca451dd50_m.jpg" align="left" border="0" height="120" hspace="35" vspace="45" width="98"></p><div> </div><i>This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the information
technology community for more than 35 years. She is an industry
analyst and her current foci are cloud computing and the effects of
technology on society. She also has expertise in helping to create
new markets for new technologies. Read more blogs by Amy on </i><font color="#0000ff"><span lang="zxx"><u><a class="western" href="http://amys.typepad.com/amy_wohls_opinions/"><i>Amy Wohl's Opinions</i></a></u></span></font><i> and follow her on twitter </i><a href="http://twitter.com/amywohl">@AmyWohl</a>.
</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>
Successfully using cloud computing is all about integrating between the on-premises data center and the cloud, as well as between multiple clouds.&nbsp; This requires a method for monitoring and managing all of your projects from a single point of view, accessible from anywhere.&nbsp; It also means being able to readily include new projects in your management environment, easily scaling up to include them.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>The problem is picking a solution at the beginning (when you’re simply attaching two things) that will scale up to include everything:&nbsp; public clouds, private clouds, smart cloud offerings, Amazon’s EC2 compute cloud offerings, and IT applications running in your data center.&nbsp; Making the investment in the right solution at the beginning means everything you want to integrate later will be achieved in a simple and elegant way.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>An offering like IBM’s <a href="http://www.castiron.com/">Cast Iron</a> integrates with IBM’s Tivoli monitoring and service management offerings, providing robust integration.&nbsp; It can run as an on-premise appliance, a virtual instance of that appliance, or as a SaaS multi-tenant service; this may be the preferred method for many customers as it eliminates both hardware and software and its maintenance. &nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Generally, customers in the mid-market prefer this class of software as a service (SaaS) since they have smaller IT departments and fewer resources.&nbsp; Their mandate is to do more with less. &nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Enterprise customers, on the other hand, are more likely to select an appliance-based solution; the integration is already performed and the appliance offers them the additional control they prefer.&nbsp; For them, Cast Iron is an out-of-the-box solution.&nbsp; It provides monitoring, scaling up, maintenance, and upgrades, which is often 3 to 5 times the cost of the initial implementation.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Integration and monitoring both include some risk.&nbsp; If you use best practices, you can lessen or even eliminate that risk.&nbsp; &nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Some applications are not ready to run entirely in the cloud.&nbsp; For example, if you have terabytes of data in your on-premises system, it is not really possible to transfer that data to the cloud because of the amount of time it would take for the transfer.&nbsp; It’s better to leave the data where it is and use an integration tool to connect to it.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>For example, at Siemens they are using Cast Iron to integrate their on-premises ERP system with their SaaS-based SalesForce.com CRM system. Click here for a video on how <a href="http://ibm.co/mQUHbT%20">Siemens uses Cast Iron</a>.&nbsp; You will find videos from other customers at the same link.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>If you plan to connect a cloud to an on-premises application, you will need monitoring for data quality, security, and preparing for any inevitability in any geographic setting, such as local circumstances, failover, etc.&nbsp; You may also find yourselves having to support multiple divisions, spread out geographically, some with few IT resources of their own.&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>So as we’ve been discussing here, to fully exploit cloud computing, you will need secure integrations between all of your on-premises and cloud-based environments.&nbsp; Get started planning with a <a href="http://public.dhe.ibm.com/common/ssi/ecm/en/wsw14139usen/WSW14139USEN.PDF">white paper on Cast Iron</a> (PDF).&nbsp; Integration is such an important topic that we’ll be talking about it in future blogs, from other points of view.</div>
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This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the...014587urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entries-3404f8c4-d29c-4d8e-a7dd-f93b13530a6bMiddleware Conversations2015-07-31T16:53:27-04:00urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entry-9ccf81f9-dc90-40ab-b8cc-1cbaffdd1c10SOA Governance and Cloud ComputingRyan Boylesraboyles@us.ibm.com100000UX41activeComment Entriesapplication/atom+xml;type=entryLikes2011-07-29T16:54:29-04:002011-07-29T16:54:29-04:00<div><style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }a:link { color: rgb(0, 0, 255); }a.western:link { }a.cjk:link { }a.ctl:link { font-family:Times New Roman; }</style>
<p style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6030/5934290677_bca451dd50_m.jpg" align="left" border="0" height="120" hspace="35" vspace="45" width="98"></p><div> </div><i>This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the information technology community for more than 35 years. She is an industry
analyst and her current foci are cloud computing and the effects of technology on society. She also has expertise in helping to create
new markets for new technologies. Read more blogs by Amy on </i><font color="#0000ff"><span lang="zxx"><u><a class="western" href="http://amys.typepad.com/amy_wohls_opinions/"><i>Amy Wohl's Opinions</i></a></u></span></font><i> and follow her on twitter </i><a href="http://twitter.com/amywohl">@AmyWohl</a>.
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<div> &nbsp; </div>
<div> &nbsp; </div>
<div> &nbsp; </div>
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<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font face="Arial, serif"><font size="2">Before
we start talking about how SOA supports cloud computing and,
particularly, governance, it would be well to remind ourselves that
cloud computing does not replace SOA nor is SOA the same thing as
cloud computing. SOA and cloud computing are synergistic, with SOA
facilitating cloud-based flexibility and cloud computing providing an
important model for SOA-based flexibility. </font></font>
</p><div> &nbsp; </div>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font face="Arial, serif"><font size="2">SOA
is an architecture methodology that allows developers to build cloud
components better and assemble cloud-based applications faster. It
also provides elements, such as governance, which are necessary to a
successful cloud implementation.</font></font></p><div> &nbsp; </div>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font face="Arial, serif"><font size="2">SOA
helps organizations better model their digital business and design
the services that will allow them to model what happens in the real
(physical) world and link them with the processes that will implement
those services in the digital world. The cloud computing environment
is itself made up of multiple pieces:</font></font></p>
<ul><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font face="Arial, serif"><font size="2">SaaS
(Software as a Service)</font></font></p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font face="Arial, serif"><font size="2">PaaS
(Platform as a Service)</font></font></p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font face="Arial, serif"><font size="2">IaaS
(Infrastructure as a Service) </font></font>
</p>
</li></ul>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font face="Arial, serif"><font size="2">In
a well designed SOA implementation of the cloud, all of these pieces
will be built as SOA-based services and linkages established between
the SOA services as well as between SOA services and the real-world
processes they will implement in the cloud.</font></font></p><div> &nbsp; </div>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font face="Arial, serif"><font size="2">Governance
is also a set of piece-parts. Within the general environment of IT
governance (implemented as part of the SOA design), there needs to be
governance for the portfolio (of software services), technology
governance, project governance (to prevent recreating silos in the
cloud that replicate those that already exist), and governance for
the services themselves. There will also need to be architectural
governance, and SOA governance itself. Together, these different
governance services will enforce business strategy and objectives.
Moreover, where SOA governance is used (now we are speaking more
generally than just about cloud computing), organizations are more
satisfied with their use of SOA and more likely to be expanding its
use. We would expect this experience to follow SOA users into the
cloud.</font></font></p><div> &nbsp; </div>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font face="Arial, serif"><font size="2">It’s
important to think about governance up front, when the cloud
computing design is first being considered. Governance works best
when it is designed in, not bolted on later. Admittedly, it’s hard
to build in governance in an organization’s first cloud/SOA
project. Often, it’s a departmental effort and that department may
not see the benefits of governance nor want to bear its cost. But
when the organization moves to multiple projects, especially hybrid
cloud projects where security, risk compliance, and governance all
become important, the role and need for governance become much
clearer. Often it’s when the organization is ready for an
integration project – whether that’s linking private clouds
together or using a hybrid cloud environment to link public and
private clouds and the data center – the organization will
recognize the need for governance.</font></font></p><div> &nbsp; </div>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font face="Arial, serif"><font size="2">Then
it will be time to look at SOA governance across the boundaries of
portfolio governance, technology governance, project governance, and
service-level governance to be certain you will reach cloud success.
I will talk more about these issues in future blogs. For more information on governance, go to the <a class="western" href="http://ibm.co/qhhEya">IBM SOA Governance website</a>.</font></font></p>p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }a:link { color: rgb(0, 0, 255); }a.western:link { }a.cjk:link { }a.ctl:link { font-family:Times New Roman; }
This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the...004396urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entries-3404f8c4-d29c-4d8e-a7dd-f93b13530a6bMiddleware Conversations2015-07-31T16:53:27-04:00urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entry-01dc51a3-822b-4a04-a5e4-dbf6697d8e39Integration Requires Good SecurityRyan Boylesraboyles@us.ibm.com100000UX41activeComment Entriesapplication/atom+xml;type=entryLikes2011-07-21T18:25:40-04:002011-07-21T18:28:46-04:00<div><style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }a:link { color: rgb(0, 0, 255); }a.western:link { }a.cjk:link { }a.ctl:link { font-family:Times New Roman; }</style>
<p style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6030/5934290677_bca451dd50_m.jpg" align="left" border="0" height="120" hspace="35" vspace="45" width="98"></p><div> </div><i>This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the information technology community for more than 35 years. She is an industry
analyst and her current foci are cloud computing and the effects of technology on society. She also has expertise in helping to create
new markets for new technologies. Read more blogs by Amy on </i><font color="#0000ff"><span lang="zxx"><u><a class="western" href="http://amys.typepad.com/amy_wohls_opinions/"><i>Amy Wohl's Opinions</i></a></u></span></font><i> and follow her on twitter </i><a href="http://twitter.com/amywohl">@AmyWohl</a>.
</div>
<div> &nbsp; </div>
<div> &nbsp; </div>
<div> &nbsp; </div>
<p></p><div>Almost every cloud computing plan will involve more than a single cloud in isolation.&nbsp; We want to connect private clouds to data centers and to public clouds.&nbsp; Much of what is appealing about cloud computing requires crossing boundaries of both governance and security.&nbsp; That means handling an entire set of security issues.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>CIO’s see security as a prime barrier to achieving the cloud results they’re looking for – in a recent survey, three of their ten cloud concerns were integration related and security was Number One.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>This cannot be avoided:&nbsp; if you want cloud computing you will need integration and if you perform integration you will require security.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>This means a plan for handling authentication, authorization, privacy, data validation, auditability, and availability.&nbsp; Your organization’s needs may also include encryption, in transit and in storage.&nbsp; All this occurs across public networks, which can be a hostile environment.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Typically, you will need software (often, a portfolio of software) or an appliance between the integration pieces, to provide both protection and function.&nbsp; Security components can also be accessed as a service. IBM offers WebSphere Cast Iron Live to provide secure integration within and between the cloud and the enterprise For example, IBM’s Cast Iron Secure Cloud Connector (Read more: <a href="ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/common/ssi/ecm/en/wsw14139usen/WSW14139USEN.PDF">PDF</a>) can establish a secure tunnel between two endpoints, allowing data flows to be initiated from either end of the connection, in conjunction with an Application Optimization license. &nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div><a href="http://ibm.co/opXuko">DataPower</a>’s magic includes a specialized compiler a high-performing throughput-optimized engine, the ability to view everything as a transformation, and purpose built hardware to execute SOA workloads and transformations.&nbsp; The appliance supports monitoring and control, deep-content routing and data aggregation, functional acceleration, application-layer security and threat protection (such as XML Denial-of-Service protection) and protocol and message bridging (for example, converting WebSphere to legacy Cobol/MQ).</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>The cloud, from a security perspective, offers additional layers of complexity, especially when accessing function or data on public clouds, where there is less control.&nbsp; But the right tools for implementing a secure hybrid cloud environment exist and appropriate education and planning can permit cloud computing to succeed, even when information and governance are crossing multiple boundaries.&nbsp; <br><br><br>In a future blog post we’ll talk more about hybrid cloud environments.</div>
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This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the...003579urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entries-3404f8c4-d29c-4d8e-a7dd-f93b13530a6bMiddleware Conversations2015-07-31T16:53:27-04:00urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entry-876a420c-5c1f-45bc-8384-c710a6e5e825SOA and the CloudRyan Boylesraboyles@us.ibm.com100000UX41activeComment Entriesapplication/atom+xml;type=entryLikes2011-07-18T14:10:19-04:002011-07-18T15:59:45-04:00<div><style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }a:link { color: rgb(0, 0, 255); }a.western:link { }a.cjk:link { }a.ctl:link { font-family:Times New Roman; }</style>
<p style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6030/5934290677_bca451dd50_m.jpg" align="left" border="0" height="120" hspace="35" vspace="45" width="98"></p><div> </div><i>This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the information
technology community for more than 35 years. She is an industry
analyst and her current foci are cloud computing and the effects of
technology on society. She also has expertise in helping to create
new markets for new technologies. Read more blogs by Amy on </i><font color="#0000ff"><span lang="zxx"><u><a class="western" href="http://amys.typepad.com/amy_wohls_opinions/"><i>Amy Wohl's Opinions</i></a></u></span></font><i> and follow her on twitter </i><a href="http://twitter.com/amywohl">@AmyWohl</a>.
</div>
<div> &nbsp;</div><div> &nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp; </div><div> </div><div> </div>
<div>
The cloud is neither something totally new nor something old, but rather something that technology now enables us to do computing remotely in interesting and economical ways. &nbsp;<br><div>&nbsp;</div><div>An important element at something that shakes up our ideas about how to do things is to know what we will have to do.&nbsp; After all, if the cloud is available but we have to rewrite every line of code we already have and insure ourselves that every application can be rewritten and run in a new environment, I doubt that we’d be so enthusiastic.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>SOA – services oriented architecture – is the tool that will allow us to make the transition.&nbsp; Already well established, it allows existing software to be connected together and new software to be written in a way that will support the new environment – data centers, private, and public clouds – and every kind of user device from a desktop PC to a laptop, a net book, a tablet, or a SmartPhone.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>SOA is all about thinking of solutions (or applications, if you prefer) as a set of services.&nbsp; The services that have already been written and tested need not be rewritten, but simply redeployed. This means new solutions can be achieved more quickly and more reliably.&nbsp; It offers the organization much more flexibility in assigning resources and prioritizing projects and it provides help in reducing the complexity of a modern computing environment.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Moreover, SOA changes the way the software will be used.&nbsp; Instead of coding each change, selecting configuration choices will emerge from the development process.&nbsp; While few applications can be developed today based entirely on configuration, we are moving in that direction. Much crisper interfaces allow services to be integrated more easily and support good behavior:&nbsp; if it’s easier to use existing services than to write new code (that does the same thing), developers are less likely to write new code, no matter how alluring that might seem.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Cloud computing seems to me to be a perfect marriage for SOA.&nbsp; Just as cloud computing permits the organization to outsource much (or all) of its hardware deployment and management, SOA permits applications to be developed by employing existing services rather than writing new code. </div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>In a new IDC study (<a href="http://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/solutions/soa/pdfs/227837_IDC.pdf">April 2011</a>), SOA was listed as the number two technology necessary for success in the cloud (web services was number one), named by 38% of respondents.&nbsp; SOA can help insure not only that the applications will be built easily and flexibly, but also that they will stand up to the cloud environment, meeting availability and reliability demands.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>SOA provides an environment which grounds the cloud application development process, whether for ISVs or enterprises, and is a critical factor in cloud computing success.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Recent studies indicate that 70% or more of Fortune 500 customers are using or plan to use SOA.&nbsp; With over 8,000 customer deployments, it is clear that many of these companies have based their SOA implementation on <a href="http://ibm.co/nDIeOl">IBM SOA offerings</a> and <a href="http://ibm.co/qpbbsH">integration solutions</a>.&nbsp; It has become the de facto architecture of the enterprise and of the cloud.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>In a future blog post we’ll talk about how governance and SOA are linked and about some of the broader implications of SOA for cloud success.</div><div>&nbsp;</div>
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This blog post was contributed by Amy Wohl. Amy Wohl has
been commenting on, writing about, and consulting to the...003079urn:lsid:ibm.com:blogs:entries-3404f8c4-d29c-4d8e-a7dd-f93b13530a6bMiddleware Conversations2015-07-31T16:53:27-04:00